MUSIC

Cellist, composer & sound​ artist Leila Bordreuil takes us deep into the bowels and liminal spaces of a deserted NYC with 40 minute long contrasting works of a tempestuous and sorely enervated nature, played on location in the subway at the Ralph Avenue subway stop in Brooklyn - complete with passing trains, people, and tension in the air. If you’re into anything from Arthur Russell to Lea Bertucci - this one’s a total headmelt. First pinging our radar with her ‘Headflush’ album for Catch Wave back in 2019, Leila Bordreuil has a tactile, extreme approach to the cello, one that focuses on its visceral aspects in a way that mimics the most spirited, fraught and melancholy human emotions. Despite the complex nature of her playing, you can trace Bordreuil's lineage back to Arthur Russell’s defining ‘World Of Echo’ in methodology and spirit - Leila plays with no processing or effect pedals, everything stems from the player, her instrument, and their surroundings. On ‘For Tamio’ - Leila performs in tribute to her collaborator and saxophonist Tamio Shiraishi, whose late night performances at the Spring Street subway, 10 stops away from Ralph Avenue, greatly inspired her own approach to capturing and playing with resonance in the subway. For just shy of 20 mins, she makes the air burn and buckle with a combustible grasp of loud/quiet dynamics and keening discord that has us seat-edge by the end. The setting is evocative to the extreme - the usually chaotic and bustling subway station now emptied of its usual inhabitants, reclaimed as a performance space in which Leila played late into the night - accompanied by memories and echoes of life, as well as a person living in the subway station who started dancing to her music, an engrossed audience of one. In contrast, ‘Past Continuous’ on the flipside was recorded in Leila’s building’s hallway, where she attached a brick to the pedal of a broken upright piano and angled her microphones in a way that gave the illusion of a large reverberant room. Adding sinewaves to enhance natural frequencies, the result is a heartbeat sketch that operates at barely perceptible levels of tonality, working in a liminal space with almost hallucinatory, ghostly overtones and a colossal sub that speaks to the anxiety dreams of a megatropolis in stasis. ‘Not An Elegy’ is a grippingly stark work that owes as much to the city’s history of jazz as it does to experimental classical forms. It's an uneasy but deeply life-affirming trip through the dense fog of memory and modern anxiety, coaxed by a player whose hands shape, and whose feelings ooze through the recordings in a way that’s impossible not to be affected by in the deepest sense. It’s a remarkable document of a time, and an artist, right on the cusp.

Shout Out! To Freedom… encapsulates the endless potential that can come about from stasis. It's a record that as is celebratory of N.O.W.’s past as it is determined to break from it.

Limited edition LP Translucent green vinyl. Musica Elettronica Viva, or MEV for short, was formed in 1966 in Rome by Allan Bryant, Alvin Curran, Jon Phetteplace, Carol Plantamura, Frederic Rzweski, Richard Teitelbaum and Ivan Vandor. From the very beginning the group was based on musical freedom and the shunning of convention. Using contact microphones to record and manipulate sound wherever it could be found – from box springs to vibrators – and improvisationally combining those recordings with tenor sax, homemade synths and the very first Moog to trek cross the Atlantic, MEV made some of the most imaginative and abrasive sounds of the time.  

Recorded in live performance at the Academy of Arts (Akademie der Künste) in Berlin on October 5, 1967, Spacecraft is made up of a single piece of the same name – a slow building, jarring and disquieting work that reveals the entire MEV ethos in its lone half hour. As group member Alvin Curran put it “The music could go anywhere, gliding into self-regenerating unity or lurching into irrevocable chaos - both were valuable goals. In the general euphoria of the times, MEV thought it had re-invented music; in any case it had certainly rediscovered it.” Our Swimmer is pleased to present this first ever vinyl issue of MEV’s Spacecraft, an early piece from the most free-spirited group of the 20th century avant-garde. Translucent green vinyl.

In an industry always pinning its hopes on the next big trend, Benny Sings is in it for the long haul. The Dutch artist has honed a signature sound while creating a colorful catalog of essential pop gems that have led to loyal global following. Music is Benny's 8th full-length album, and his second on Stones Throw after City Pop (2019).

There was something in the air in the urban corners of late ‘60s Japan. Student protests and a rising youth culture gave way to the angura (short for “underground) movement that thrived on subverting traditions of the post-war years. Rejection of the Beatlemania-inspired Group Sounds and the squeaky clean College Folk movements led the rise of what came to be known in Japan as “New Music,” where authenticity mattered more than replicating the sounds of their idols.

Some of the most influential figures in Japanese pop music emerged from this vital period, yet very little of their work has ever been released or heard outside of Japan, until now. Light In The Attic is thrilled to present Even a Tree Can Shed Tears, the inaugural release in the label’s Japan Archival Series. This is the first-ever, fully licensed collection of essential Japanese folk and rock songs from the peak years of the angura movement to reach Western audiences.

In mid-to-late 1960s Tokyo, young musicians and college students were drawn to Shibuya’s Dogenzaka district for the jazz and rock kissas, or cafes, that dotted its winding hilly streets. Some of these spaces doubled as performance venues, providing a stage for local regulars like Hachimitsu Pie with their The Band-like ragged Americana, Tetsuo Saito with his spacey philosophical folk, and the influential Happy End, who successfully married the unique cadences of the Japanese language to the rhythms of the American West Coast. For many years Dogenzaka remained a center of the city’s “New Music” scene.

Meanwhile a different kind of music subculture was beginning to emerge in the Kansai region around Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe. Far more political than their eastern counterparts, many of the Kansai-based “underground” artists began in the realm of protest folk music. They include Takashi Nishioka and his progressive folk collective Itsutsu No Akai Fuusen, the “Japanese Joni Mitchell” Sachiko Kanenobu, and The Dylan II, whose members ran The Dylan cafe in Osaka, which became a hub for the scene.

Even a Tree Can Shed Tears also includes the bluesy avant-garde stylings of Maki Asakawa, future Sadistic Mika Band founder Kazuhiko Kato with his fuzzy, progressive psychedelia, the beatnik acid folk of Masato Minami, and the intimate living room folk of Kenji Endo.

Nearly 50 years on, this “New Music” is born anew.

A beautiful album celebrating Hawaii’s warmth and spirit. Enterprising composer and musician Eddie Suzuki made his own path throughout his lifetime. Born on October 4, 1929, Suzuki worked as a young shoeshiner in 1940s Honolulu, saving enough money to take piano lessons. In high school, he led a big band orchestra of 16, and sometimes up to 40 members. By the age of 18, he owned a piano shop that pivoted to become Honolulu’s top guitar store. For Eddie Suzuki, music always came first. In 1973, after performing and composing songs for many years, Eddie Suzuki and his group, New Hawaii, recorded the now impossibly rare album, High Tide. The LP isn’t a rock-outfit, local music journalist Wayne Harada ruminated in a 1973 review. Rather, it’s one man’s vision and version of the now Hawaii. A seasoned mix of psych, Hawaiian, and pop sensibilities, the music on High Tide gave the listener a look into Eddie’s singular vision celebrating the sights and sounds (and spirit) of Hawaii.

Like the 1963 LP Nina Simone at Carnegie Hall, Folksy Nina was also recorded there on May 12, 1963, but duplicates little of the material found on that prior album. It isn't just unworthy leftovers, but a strong set in its own right, concentrating on material that could be seen as traditional or folk in orientation. It's not exactly strictly folk music, in repertoire or arrangement (which includes piano, guitar, bass, and drums, though not every tune has all of the instruments); "Twelfth of Never" (which had also appeared on the Carnegie Hall LP) certainly isn't folk music. However, there was also an uptempo piano blues, Lead Belly's "Silver City Bound," covers of the Israeli "Erets Zavat Chalav" and "Vanetihu" (which served as further proof that Simone's eclecticism knew no bounds), and the stark, moody, spiritually shaded ballads at which she excelled ("When I Was a Young Girl," "Hush Little Baby"). "Lass of the Low Country" is as exquisitely sad and beautiful as it gets. ~ Richie Unterberger

In the endless ocean of Sun Ra recordings, Space Is The Place ranks among the very best but more importantly stands as the most immediately understandable of his records. This masterpiece touches flawlessly on elements of many of Ra's multiple phases and provides both a mission statement for and a gateway to his immaculate body of work. Originally released in 1973; Tip-on Gatefold Jacket; Original Artwork; Limited Transparent Blue Colored Vinyl.

Sold out on the label! This is truly eternal. A great masterpiece of timeless charm! This is a masterpiece by Spiritualized, formed in 1990 by Jason Pierce, a former member of the famous British band Spacemen 3, which continues to fascinate audiences as the ultimate act of floating, escapist neo-psychedelia. Spiritualized was formed in 1990 by Jason Pierce, a former member of Spacemen 3, and others, and is published by Fat Possum, a prestigious indie label. This is one of the greatest alternative rock albums of the 90's, boiling down psychedelic music to the extreme. It's like watching a dream collaboration between Brian Wilson and La Monte Young.

Highly recommended. Kiefer, also known as post-Robert Glasper. The West Coast giant, also known for studying under Kenny Burrell, drops the latest EP from the Sanctuary again! The final title of the EP trilogy by the ace, who swallows urban vibes, earthy odor, and funkness and sublimates into outstanding beat music, has arrived. Seamlessly cross from spiritual jazz to neo-soul and instrumental hip-hop. A good work that shows off an excellent sound image as usual! The magical sound that makes you feel as if you are watching the dream co-star of The Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra x Robert Glasper x Ras G (isn't it ?!) is exceptional.

It's been four years since their shocking debut album. Four years after her shocking debut album, a long-awaited new album has arrived. Four years after her shocking debut album, Pan Daijing, a Chinese female sound artist based in Berlin, Germany, has released her second album in analog form on the prestigious PAN label! Here, the aesthetics of industrial/drone and underground noise, which have been handed down since the days of Ramleh and M.B., and a cathartic, ominous performance come together. A masterpiece of post-industrial music, full of anxiety, loneliness, and a sense of apocalypse!

Mark Leckey presents the soundtrack to his autobiographical allegory ‘O’ Magic Power of Bleakness’, a mind sluicing fantasy inspired by folklore and half-remembered tales of teenage life growing up in the Wirral, a personal history woven into screwed 808s, ringtones, sacred chimes, smudged synths and levitating ambience that sounds like nowt else.

Following his seminal, hauntological trips ‘Fiorucci Made me Hardcore’ (2012) and ‘Dream English Kid 1964 - 1999AD’ (2016); the 3-part accompaniment to ‘O' Magic Power Of Bleakness’ captures the Turner Prize-winning artist moving beyond signature collage tekkers to create an entirely original arrangement for his latest audio-visual installation at Tate Britain in 2019 - a life-size replica of a motorway bridge on the M53 on the Wirral, Merseyside. In situ, the soundtrack is a vital component of the installation, livicating its liminal space with a narrative arc that magically turns familiar, popular and folkwise tropes into an occultural tale about provenance and a reminder of the supernatural in the modern world.

Leckey approaches the piece as "an autobiographical allegory” in an attempt to locate the enduring enigma of sub/urban British life with uncanny insight. Alongside his own narration, a plethora of Scouse-kids play out the story of an aspirational kid who escapes the Wirral not to London, but to the faerie realm spoken of in Northern European folklore. When he crashes down to earth, his friends don't understand who, or what, he's become. It ultimately concludes in a symphonic supernatural riot, culminating a sort of metaphysical transformation common to Traditional Ballads and reminding us of the angel/redemption sequence at the end of Lynch’s ‘Fire Walk With Me’.

'O' Magic Power Of Bleakness’ is a well-worn story that's brutally familiar to anyone who's escaped the clutches of one of Britain's forgotten, Tory-scoured battlefields. But Leckey's treatment is transformative; he offsets observed reality with the surreal verve of folklore like a theme park ride thru a Britain the country prefers not to remember, decorated with themes that have been looped around our collective consciousness for thousands of years. Leckey’s art has essentially come to reflect the psyche of a generation, divining the poetic and occult from the seeming banality of British life by tapping into leylines that riddle the concrete landscape to the imagination. Specifically (if allegorically) it’s Leckey’s life in focus but, on the broadest level, the work speaks to the politics of big town parochiality vs. the elusive lure of big city glitter, in a way that’s bound to resonate with many listeners who’ve made that same transition and questioned their place in-between worlds in the process.

180G heavy vinyl. The long awaited remastered vinyl reissue of the first album from 2001 by Pub, the ambient/electronica genius from Glasgow who has been making music since he was 14 years old and runs Ampoule. While the original LP version has been rising in price, this 2LP reissue is finally available as a 20th anniversary edition. It's a chill ambient gem that sublimates into a polished beauty by stoically pursuing a simple sound, with a relentless repetition of rough beats and a sweet daydream-like synthscape entwined therein. Remastered by Dubplates & Mastering, this album is highly recommended for fans of Porter Ricks and Boards Of Canada!

1972's Psychonaut, by the Swiss-based Brainticket, is early seventies space rock at its finest. While the band's debut album, 1971's Cottonwoodhill, was a heavily acid-laden affair dominated by droning organ, disturbing vocals and a collection of cacophonic sound effects (causing it to carry a warning label and be banned in several countries) for their second effort, band-founder Joël Vandroogenbroeck brought in a completely new line-up and changed the band's sound dramatically. While Psychonaut still takes listeners into the realm of altered consciousness -- making heavy use of a droning Hammond, sitar, tablas, etc.-- this time the vocals are more melodic and the music itself is more song-oriented. This is by far Brainticket's most accessible album, and perhaps their most timeless. Fully remastered from the original master tapes! 

Radiohead's fourth album "Kid A" and their fifth album "Amnesiac" were recorded at the same time and are regarded as twins. To commemorate the 21st anniversary of the release of "Kid A" and their fifth album "Amnesiac", which was recorded at the same time and can be regarded as a twin work, they have been released as a single 3-CD set "Kid A Mnesia" with unreleased/rare material!
At the time of its release in 2000, Radiohead's innovative fourth album "Kid A" caused controversy with its style that abandoned the guitar rock format and incorporated cutting-edge electronic music from the likes of Aphex Twin and Ooteca.
The band's 2001 album, Amnesiac, was recorded around the same time and became the template for the band's mature sound in recent years, mixing electronics with classic music such as kraut rock, jazz and bluegrass.
This time, 20 years after its release, the band presents 12 songs including B-sides and other versions discovered from the recording sessions, the unreleased song "If You Say the Word," which has been known among core fans but passed down as an urban legend, and the first official release of "Follow Me Around. Kid A Mnesiae", a 3-disc set with 12 bonus discs including the previously unreleased "If You Say the Word" and the first official release of "Follow Me Around", renews the great history of the band.
"Everything in It's Right Place" --- a work that revolutionized the history of music in the 2000s, but took two different trajectories, is now coming together after 20 years. Now they become one.

Cosmic traveler Herman ‘Sonny’ Blount became Sun Ra after an alien abduction, proclaiming that he came from Saturn and using music to point to human failure on earth, offering space as ethereal alternative. Supersonic Jazz was released in 1957 on Ra’s Saturn label and regularly reissued, even making it onto Impulse in 1974, its blend of bop, avant-garde and galactic well ahead of its time. More melodic and cohesive than many subsequent titles, ‘Advice To Medics’ is a troubling Ra piano diversion, and ‘Super Blonde’ a big-band stomp; ‘Soft Talk,’ by trombonist Julian Priester, is one of the vehicles for John Gilmore’s tenor sax and ‘Kingdom Of Not’ has uncommon swing. A must for all Sun Ra scholars!

This is the first analogue release in 18 years of the CD release from These Records, which was released in 1993 on the UK experimental/recording label. This is a compilation of material from 1979 and 1980, newly remastered from the original tapes. This is an official release endorsed by the original members, Charles Bullen and Charles Hayward.

Formed in 1976 in Brixton, a multicultural, and - at the time - down-at-heel part of south London, This Heat were born into a music scene in rapid flux, first thanks to the punk explosion and then via new wave and its myriad offshoots into pop, rock and art-rock. But while many sought to apply punk attitude to chart-friendly sounds, This Heat were concocting some of the most experimental ideas ever committed to tape, taking influence from musique concrète, krautrock, the burgeoning industrial scene and even the dub reggae blasting out in their home borough. Given the difficult, abrasive, and involved nature of their furiously forward-thinking sound, This Heat never found anything approaching mainstream success, but patronage by the influential Radio 1 DJ John Peel meant they reached a national audience - whether that audience was ready for them or not. Made Available collects This Heat's two Peel Sessions, recorded for BBC Radio 1 in April and October of 1977 and features essential songs that would later appear on their debut album, This Heat (1979) and the follow-up, Deceit (1981), as well as electro-acoustic works unique to these sessions. These are the earliest public recordings of the band, showing even in their infancy, masterful use of live tape loops and radical song structure. Following Modern Classics Recordings' 2016 reissue campaign to mark the band's 40th anniversary, these new releases Made Available, Repeat / Metal and Live 80 - 81 round out the story. Each release is sanctioned by surviving members Charles Bullen and Charles Hayward and features newly remastered audio sourced from original tapes.

Recommended for fans of Bjork, Radiohead, Gabi and Holly Herndon. Maarja Nuut is a female singer and violinist from Estonia who has collaborated with dub and ambient wizards Sun Araw and Pjusk (12k, Dronarivm). The album features guest drummer Nicolas Stocker on several tracks. The album opens with the percussive and cosmic electrified jazz of "Hinged". On "Kutse Tantsule_A Call To Dance," he sings with a freshness reminiscent of Bjork, over a minimal rhythm of sparkling synths. A Feast" is a hypnagogic and haunting minimalist dance-pop song. This is an important electronic pop album of the year that is recommended to a wide range of listeners, from contemporary jazz to trip-hop to new age listeners. Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri (!), a master of modern classical/drone music.

The long-awaited repress! The label's Warfaring Strangers Comp and Josefus-based proto-heavy metal hot 71st edition !! Missouri's unknown four-piece heavy psychedelic, Bulbous Creation's only album is back from Numero!

Limited clear vinyl edition. No matter how long it's been since Phew's debut solo album, made with CAN's Holger Schukay and Jaki Liebezeit in the studio of art punk band Arndt Sally and Connie Plank, he's not about to let us down.

New Decade," her first album on MUTE in almost 30 years, is a resolute rebuttal to the world's self-absorbed phonies, "I wanted to get rid of sentimentality. I guess I'm lucky," she says, "considering my current situation. Last year, I was especially lucky to be alive in a way. As a musician and an artist, it's a privilege to be able to speak your mind openly and honestly under such circumstances, and I felt that I shouldn't abuse it.

This has been a guiding principle for Phew in recent years, as he has created a number of solo works that combine his distinctive vocals with feverish drone synthesizers and brittle drum machines. Long before the pandemic, she was accustomed to working on her productions in the isolation of her home, even keeping her voice down so as not to disturb her neighbors. In "New Decade," the atmosphere is more and more intense, which she attributes to her absence from touring for the past 18 months. The bleak, haunting album is composed of empty words, unspoken screams and moans chanted in English and Japanese against a backdrop of cracked, dubby electronics.

The title "New Decade" used to mean hope and dynamism, but many of the newspaper and magazine articles published at the dawn of the 2020s predicted how much worse things would get in the future. "Thirty years ago, the word 'new' was synonymous with progress and things getting better," says Phew, recalling the expansionism that fueled Japan's bubble economy in the 1980s. "And there's a loose concept of time perception that runs through the album. "In the 80's and up until the 90's, things were moving from the past to the present to the future, but I feel that this has changed, especially since the beginning of the 21st century. Personally, I don't see a future that is connected to the present anymore." This is reflected in the disorienting nature of her current work. Phew is not deliberately retro like many analog synth revivalists, nor does he waste time trying to keep up with the latest trends. Phew's music is timeless, resonating in its own frequency.

Else Marie Pade's Electronic Works 1958-1995 is a heavy duty three LP set which was restored, mastered and cut at Dubplates in Berlin under the watchful ears of curator Jacob Kirkegaard. These monumental works are presented, for the first time, pressed on audiophile grade heavy duty vinyl where they belong. Audiophile grade 3LP is pressed in an edition of 500 copies.

"The sounds outside became concrete music, and in the evening I could imagine that the stars and the moon and the sky uttered sounds and those turned into electronic music." Else Marie Pade

Else Marie Pade (born 1924 in Aarhus, Denmark; currently living in Copenhagen) is a precious golden gem in the world of contemporary electro-acoustic music. She is a true pioneer of Musique Concrete and electronic music recorded on tape. She is Denmarks first lady of electronic music and her piece Syc Cirkler (Seven Circles) became Denmark's first electronic piece to be performed on the radio.

EMP's search for sound began in early childhood when she was isolated in her bed for long periods of time due to illness. There she would lie and listen to the sounds around her just as she did years later when she was imprisoned for spying on Nazi compounds in Arhus. Once released from prison she became a piano student at the Royal Danish Conservatory in Copenhagen but chose to instead pursue the nuances of her inner sound world after hearing Pierre Schaeffer in 1952. She began studying with him not too soon thereafter. Her first electronic composition premiered in 1955.

A clear vinyl analog reissue of the 1981 masterpiece "Edu & Tom" featuring the collaboration of two of MPB's greatest talents, Edu Lobo and Tom Jobim, who have been working together since the dawn of bossa nova in Brazil. The album is based on the classic repertoire such as "Raining Roses" and "Vento Bravo" and has a timeless appeal.

This is an officially licensed reissue. This is the 20th anniversary edition of the IDM masterpiece "Slow Motion Process", which Martin Haidinger, who used to run the electronica mecca Toytronic, released under the name Gimmik on Worm Interface in 2001. The album is a masterpiece of crystalline ambience and glitchy noise that crawls on the ground, reminding us of the wisdom of the golden age of electronica and IDM! The analog version includes an additional unreleased track "Typologic" from 1999.